mi hermano

I jokingly refer to myself as a renaissance man, knowing full well that doodling a little bit every now & then & being able to put together a really good mixtape hardly qualifies as such, but my brother, JD, actually embodies the very concept in the truest sense of the term.
Our relationship at times has been strained but my respect for his talents has never followed suit. In his wide & varied experience & in his many travels, he has painted, sculpted, tattooed, played music, cooked & baked, repaired accordions, opened galleries & restaurants, been in more bands of so many many different genres & temperaments, elated, infuriated, raised rabble, & basically has always left any place he has been with a little more imagination & inspiration that it previously had.
Thirty years ago, he held me down, dangled his saliva over my face & made me scream in a high-pitched manner that would for some reason make our cat bite my face repeatedly. Twenty years ago, he put ink to my breast, indelibly marking me with a Native American badger symbol that signified more about our relationship that the actual meaning of the marking. Thirteen years ago, he cooked for my wedding & played guitar as my beautiful bride walked down the grassy aisle. Now he flies into town once a year to play a concert in our garage with my soon-to-be nine year old, allowing our precocious aspiring musician to act as lead singer, guitarist & overall ringmaster whilst behind the amp, JD makes sure the band stays tight & true to my boy's vision.
During this time, we have consoled each other over lost loves as well as shared joy in current ones, we have argued bitterly in cars & on street corners, we have written, drawn & painted together, traversed the country, narrowly avoiding ugly arrests down south as well as watching the sunrise over the Grand Canyon, celebrated each other, accused each other, loved & hated each other at different times & sometimes at the same time, our relationship has grown & receded in fits & starts, we have talked but perhaps never really talked...

Today is my brother's birthday, & because I have this little piece of Internet real estate, I can wish him the happiness & joy he so truly deserves in a very public way & hope that the pleasure his oh-so-many talents have brought oh-so-many people are reflected back unto him on this day & every day hereafter.

& because you, dear reader, sat thru the above (& perhaps to embarrass my darling brother), I give you a real rarity from his vast oeuvre, dating all the way back to the 80's, when he was just an insolent pup playing a mean guitar, backing up a local celebrity madman named Jigs. This track, long-forgotten but still potent, comes off of a compilation (notable at the time for its inclusion of then-red-hot band, "The Smithereens"), "East Coast 60'S Rock And Roll Experiment", a collection of local punk & otherwise inclined bands covering 60's tunes (hence the title). So, without further ado, Jigs & The Pigs lettin' us know "These Boots Are Made For Walking"~